The three Romanians, a woman and two men, were sentenced by a court in the city of Castres, in the Tarn department in southern France, after judges heard details of an elaborate swindle of a local jeweller and his business partner.
The presumed leader of the group of thieves, a Serb who lived in the Paris region, was sentenced in absentia to five years in jail. The man’s whereabouts are unknown and the court issued an international warrant for his arrest.
Wealthy couple approaches vendors
The scam began at a diamond trade fair in early 2017, when two of the Romanians posed as a wealthy couple and approached the French jeweller and his Indian business partner, Nishit Shah.
The fake couple expressed interest in acquiring precious stones and met the two vendors twice over the following weeks at luxurious sites in Milan, Italy.
The couple flashed 500-euro bills in apparent displays of wealth and expressed their wish to pay for the diamonds in cash. Smelling a rat, the French jeweller sought to withdraw from the deal, but Shah continued negotiations.
Double-bottomed briefcase
A third meeting took place in Mazamet, near Castres, during which Shah showed three authentic and certified diamonds. The buyers asked to have an independent expert examine the stones.
The last meeting was at Mazamet in August 2017, between the fake couple, Shah and a third Romanian posing as an independent expert.
Through the course of the talks, the false expert constantly left the room to use a telephone “in order to mislead and lower the vigilance of the vendor,” the presiding judge said.
Having sealed a deal, Shah placed the diamonds in a briefcase provided by the fake expert. The briefcase had a double bottom that allowed the thieves to pilfer the diamonds.
Shah left with the briefcase and a promise that he would receive a bank transfer of 1.1 million US dollars. When no transfer arrived by the following day, Shah opened the briefcase to find it empty.
“Sleight of hand in a briefcase with a double-bottomed box, long negotiations, a swindled victim,” summarised prosecutors, who added the case was “out of the ordinary for the little jurisdiction of Castres”.
18 SIM cards
Following the theft, the thieves set out for luxury hotels in Antibes, a town between Cannes and Nice on the French Riviera. Over the phone, they sought in vain to find buyers for the stones in Zurich and perhaps in Hong Kong.
The trio was arrested two months later in possession of real and fake gems, luxury cars and watches and counterfeit cash. The diamonds were nowhere to be found and have not since been recovered.
Regional radio station France Bleu reported the accused appeared in the courtroom wearing jogging pants and sweatshirts and claimed to live off French social benefits.
Asked why they possessed a watch worth 36,000 euros, the trio told the court “it was a gift.” They provided no explanation about their five telephones and 18 SIM cards.
Shah will never have the chance to see the precious stones again. He passed away after a heart attack in 2018.
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